VLT Instrument Pipelines

Latest News:

This is a maintenance release of the MUSE recipe package. It provides
updated static calibrations suitable for data taken after a hardware
intervention on the 1st of April 2015.Read more...

April 21, 2015: P-95 releases of pipeline packages are available!

For most instrument pipelines an updated version is now available. For
details please have a look here.

For Mac users these pipeline packages (with and without EsoReflex support) are
now also available as MacPorts packages for Mac OSX 10.9!
For details please have a look a
the installation instructions

January 28, 2015: MUSE pipeline recipes v1.0.1 are available!

This is a maintenance release of the MUSE recipe package, addressing
a number of EsoReflex workflow and documentation related issues.Read more...

Introduction

In collaboration with the various instrument consortia, the Pipeline Systems Department has undertaken to implement
data reduction pipelines for the most commonly used VLT/VLTI instrument modes. These data reduction pipelines have
three main purposes:

Data quality control -
pipelines are used to produce the quantitative information necessary to
monitor instrument performance (see the ESO
Quality Control web pages for more information).

Science product creation -
using pipeline-generated master calibration products, science products are
produced for supported instrument modes (e.g. combined ISAAC jitter
stacks; bias-corrected, flat-fielded FORS images, wavelength-calibrated
UVES spectra). The accuracy of the science products can be limited both by
the quality of the available master calibration products and by the
algorithmic implementation of the pipelines themselves. In particular,
adopted reduction strategies may not be suitable for all scientific goals.
Therefore, ESO assumes no responsibility for the usefulness of reduced
data for any specific scientific project.

Pipelines Running Environments: EsoReflex, Gasgano and Esorex

EsoReflex is the recommended way to reduce ESO data. It automatically
organizes input files according to their category and runs the entire
reduction chain at the push of a button. It supports break points in the
reduction sequence in order to inspect and interact with intermediate
and final products and rerun the corresponding step if necessary.
The supported instrument modes are identified by a blue background color
in the pipelines table

Gasgano
is a Java-based data file organizer developed and maintained by ESO. It can be
used to manage and organize in a systematic way the astronomical data observed
and produced by all VLT compliant telescopes. Gasgano is a graphics-based
software tool for organising and viewing data files produced by the VLT Control
System. Gasgano offers functionalities for data viewing, grouping, sorting,
classification, searching, and filtering of data. And, of course, Gasgano
will run any requested CPL recipe on the selected data.

Esorex, a command-line utility for running pipeline recipes
is also available. It may be embedded by users at their home institute into data reduction scripts for the
automation of processing tasks.

Both Gasgano and Esorex are included in the pipeline public release packages.

EsoReflex-based Pipeline workflows

Installation Instructions

We currently provide several ways to install one or several pipelines on your machine. The recommended installation procedure depends on whether you are working on a Mac OSX or on Linux and
whether you want to use EsoReflex based pipelines or not.

MacPorts
For Apple Mac OS X 10.9 or newer, it is recommended to install it with MacPorts (whether you use EsoReflex based pipelines or not).
Refer to the instructions provided here.

install_esoreflex
Otherwise, you can install EsoReflex based pipelines on a Mac OSX or on Linux with the following steps (it includes EsoReflex itself, the pipelines and demo data sets):

Check the software prerequisites and installation instructions in the Release Notes of the new EsoReflex 2.6 workflows

Check the "Important Notes and Bug Reports" section of the Release Notes

Pipelines Status

The pipeline status determines the level of ESO support in fixing the software. For any help with installation and usage of a pipeline, please contact the helpdesk ticketing system (e-mail to usd-help@eso.org or "Ask for help" link in he User Portal homepage). ESO internal (operations) users should request support from the pipeline developers team using JIRA. Here are the possible entries:

Active: Pipelines that are affected by a data product upgrade are considered active in the sense that a project team is actively working on them. These pipelines are fully supported and have the highest priority for support. The support consists in prompt evaluation of all requests.

Operational on hold: Pipelines that are on hold are not under active development and are of lower priority for support. Pipelines are put into this status when they are considered to be essentially completed, i.e. no enhancements or upgrades are currently under way. The software support consists in porting these pipelines to new CPL versions, carrying out emergency repairs and fixing trivial problems. The User Support Department will evaluate and answer if possible the requests for help received via helpdesk (usd-help@eso.org), but by default there will be no available support from pipeline developers.

End of maintenance: Pipelines in this status are the lowest priority for support. The only work performed on these pipelines is to make sure they can still run in the current ESO environment. The User Support Department evaluates and answers if possible the requests for help received via helpdesk (usd-help@eso.org). Tickets reporting problems on the pipeline will not receive any software support.